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California State University, Dominguez Hills
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Created: September 6, 2003
Latest Update: September 6, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Soc. 595-01: Alternative approaches to Theory: Week 3
Preparations for Class and Internet Discussions

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• Topic:

  This week's topic is about how hard it is to remember to listen to Others. I was so sure that the site was perfectly intuitive that I just couldn't believe it was still necessary to schedule some lab time to show you how to get around it. Just because I spend 16 hours a day at it, it must be obvious. Now I teach you answerability and the need to recognize the Other, and I fail to hear your confusion when you voice it. I'm lucky. Latoya Lewis has had me before so she sent me an e-mail that said:

  "I believe if [the students] understand the concepts a little better, they can begin to relate them to the work on the site. I think it would be a great idea to set up a time to meet with the students in the computer lab to learn how to use the site.
  Thanks, Latoya Lewis"

  Our discussion on Wednesday evening revolved around how to handle it when you find yourself in a monologic non-answerable situation. Latoya's message to me makes it clear that she considered that I would not create monologic non-answerability. So it was OK to tell me to get serious about getting to the lab and site training, and that a good definition would help. Her very message assumes answerability. And that is often necessary in working situations. If the one with decision-making power isn't hearing the Others, then someone who knows the risks and how to do so, must do something. What Latoya did was pretty courageous. In a work situation within a hierarchical organization, as we discussed last week, such a direct move might be risky, both to Latoya, and to the person she was trying at that moment to help.

• Concepts:

  • answerability: Briefly, answerability is the recognition and consideration of the fact that every utterance (or act) in which we engage for communication is received by an Other who has the same human power of utterance that we do and is in this sense free to answer us. Bakhtin uses the term in the sense of What shall I say, when there is an Other who may answer me? This implies that we are not free of the consequences of utterances that neglect to consider that question and the Other's possible answers.

    The Aesthetics of Answerability and Dialogical Answerability in Hierarchical Institutions give more complex readings of answerability. You might also want to look for some advanced theory at The Other, Otherness, and Alterity On the Postcolonial Web.

    riskiness of answering: It is risky to answer someone with decision-making power over you when your are not sure that that answerability will be taken as simple communication and a communicative act. It is risky because communication is normatively expected to go from the higher status rank to the lower, not from the lower status rank to the higher. Street Corner Society, William Foote Whyte. "Whyte's study of urban young men in "Cornerville," an Italian neighborhood in Boston, conducted between 1937 and 1940 ..." Classic sociological dissertation from the '30s.

    communicative act: An act for which the ultimate aim is understanding of the argumentation that should lead to consensus and to solution of the problems being discussed. In other words the communicative act is not an attempt to convince someone to side with you, but to arrive collectively at the best solution.

    normative expectations: The French used to refer to normative expectations as "les idees dans l'air." Things that everybody knows. We expect that people will come to work on time, pay for the things they buy, study if they go to school, vote democratic if they believe that government should provide a safety net for everyone. Normative here refers to what the average person would do or expect. Important to remember that there is considerable affect attached to a violation of normative expectations. Imagine the result if you were to wear a bikini to class.

    dominant discourse: Dominant discourse is very similar to "les idees dans l'air." It's what you would expect to hear people saying in the grocery market checkout line. It's the discourse that accepts and reflects the position of people in power who make most of the country's decisions in legislatures and courts.